Wednesday, January 26, 2011

You are the Answer to Fiक्ष् the world

Dear Friends,
In this perceptive article, Parag Khanna argues that the crisis our civilization faces today is similar to the many crises during the Middle Ages which still managed to usher in the Renaissance.He sees a similar renaissance coming through the Internet and creative capitalism.
The modern day Medicis like Bill Gates outspend the world's govts on public health.George Soros supports human rights crusaders worldwide and Richard Branson is in the forefront promoting green technologies.Gatherings like World Economic Forum at Davos,Clinton Global Initiative are the visible tips of the iceberg to see this new public-private model in action.These give hope to the million synergies happening by the brave warriors worlwide where "everyone seems to be working for everyone else."
This column has relentlessly argued that we have to be the agents for change we want to see.We will only have a bright future only when we usher in the opulence of our own souls which then pushes us on the path of eternal resilience,hope and sustained action.
So friends let us not give up on ourselves and indulge in futile flagellation.We have seen nothing yet of the flowering of human genius.

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/


In one of the most memorable scenes in cinema, Orson Welles' Harry Lime rides the giant Viennese Ferris wheel in the 1949 classic The Third Man and muses, "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

In some respects, our world today isn't far off from the European medieval landscape that Lime conjured up. It is a multipolar, multicivilizational world in which every empire, city-state, multinational corporation or mercenary army is out for itself. Instead of predictable relationships in international relations, the difference between the words alliance and dalliance is just one letter. There are so many failed or failing states that we have to question whether, as in the Middle Ages, we should accept that what passes for "government" will be different at any two points on the map.
(Read: "Global Economy: A Changing Order")

Walter Lippmann warned that we have a tendency to define first and then to see rather than to see first and then define. The chaotic world we see today can't be easily defined, but it can be understood by looking back to an era in which both the West and the East were strong enough to call their own shots, when empires but also city-states competed for influence, when the Arab world and Islam were powerful, when governments mattered but so too did corporations and wealthy families and when religion and trade were driving forces in connecting the globe.

A thousand years ago, Song-dynasty China was the most advanced civilization in the world, India's Chola dynasty ruled the seas to Indonesia, and the Abbasid caliphate stretched from North Africa through Persia. In Asia it was a golden age. But in the West, we associate the medieval world with plagues, crusades, mercenaries, witches. And today we find ourselves again in a potentially long period of fear and uncertainty. Fear, however, can motivate innovation and progress. Inventions ranging from the cannon to the compass and even double-entry bookkeeping were developed during the Middle Ages. If we want to pull ourselves out of this new Middle Ages and into the next Renaissance, we need to similarly harness the turbulence of today to build a stable tomorrow. Perhaps a little fear of the future could help.
(Read: "Fierce and Friendly: China's Two Diplomatic Faces.")

No End to Crisis
Over several hundred years between the 11th and 15th centuries, the great Eurasian landmass was beset by conflict and crises: a papal schism, the Crusades, Mongol invasions and the Black Death. Today we have crises in spades. The plague has reappeared in the form of global pandemics like AIDS. The world is still recovering from the worst economic downturn in 80 years. Terrorism is unstoppable in the Middle East and South Asia, piracy has returned to Africa's coastlines, and the U.N. recently declared organized crime a "superpower." As was the case hundreds of years ago, our present disorder is not episodic but chronic. Believing that the world is safer because there is less terrorism this year than last is like believing that the global economy is healthy just because the stock market went up for a week.

Ours is an arbitrary world: billions today live unsure of whether their true masters are the equivalent of local feudal lords, elected but corrupt politicians or distant corporate executives. Asian and Arab sovereign wealth funds buy up Africa's cropland to hedge against their own food shortages while profiting from the sale of poor nations' precious food supplies. But two things are sure: who has the money makes the rules, and the rules will be different wherever you go. Instead of the U.N. leading a world of strong international law, our international institutions are more like Europe's Holy Roman Empire, to whom local powers simply paid lip service.
(See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

Just as in the Middle Ages, our world today is more a network of villages than it is a single one. Megacities such as Rio, Istanbul, Cairo, Mumbai, Nairobi and Manila teem with hundreds of thousands of urban squatters and have become worlds unto themselves that most residents never have the privilege of leaving. Still, those in their migrant underclass often live in functional, self-organizing ecosystems. Whether rich or poor, cities, more than nations, are the building blocks of global activity today.

The look of the entire postcolonial world is in the throes of change. Today the world is being fundamentally remapped in a process that is as violent as it is necessary. It took the Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648 for a fractured Europe to begin to codify a more predictable system of sovereign states. Now, from Congo and Sudan to Iraq and Pakistan, borders must be redrawn to correct for nonexistent or illegitimate governance and respect the aspirations of people to govern themselves. It could take decades for the growing list of failing states to be sorted out.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Light in India

January 10, 2011, 7:25 pm A Light in India
By DAVID BORNSTEIN

Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.

.Tags:
electricity, India, innovation, Poverty, power

.


© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace
Students in the village of Tahipur in Bihar used kerosene lanterns for studying.When we hear the word innovation, we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions — like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. To be sure, breakthroughs are vital: antibiotics and vaccines, for example, transformed global health. But as we’ve argued in Fixes, some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are underserved.

One area where this is desperately needed is access to electricity. In the age of the iPad, it’s easy to forget that roughly a quarter of the world’s population — about a billion and a half people (pdf) — still lack electricity. This isn’t just an inconvenience; it takes a severe toll on economic life, education and health. It’s estimated that two million people die prematurely each year as a result of pulmonary diseases caused by the indoor burning of fuels for cooking and light. Close to half are children who die of pneumonia.

In vast stretches of the developing world, after the sun sets, everything goes dark. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 70 percent of the population lack electricity. However, no country has more citizens living without power than India, where more than 400 million people, the vast majority of them villagers, have no electricity. The place that remains most in darkness is Bihar, India’s poorest state, which has more than 80 million people, 85 percent of whom live in households with no grid connection. Because Bihar has nowhere near the capacity to meet its current power demands, even those few with connections receive electricity sporadically and often at odd hours, like between 3:00 a.m and 6:00 a.m., when it is of little use.

This is why I’m writing today about a small but fast-growing off-grid electricity company based in Bihar called Husk Power Systems. It has created a system to turn rice husks into electricity that is reliable, eco-friendly and affordable for families that can spend only $2 a month for power. The company has 65 power units that serve a total of 30,000 households and is currently installing new systems at the rate of two to three per week.

What’s most interesting about Husk Power is how it has combined many incremental improvements that add up to something qualitatively new — with the potential for dramatic scale. The company expects to have 200 systems by the end of 2011, each serving a village or a small village cluster. Its plan is to ramp that up significantly, with the goal of having 2,014 units serving millions of clients by the end of 2014.


© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace

A biomass gasifier owned and operated by Husk Power Systems.Husk Power was founded by four friends: Gyanesh Pandey, Manoj Sinha, Ratnesh Yadav and Charles W. Ransler, who met attending different schools in India and the United States. Pandey, the company’s chief executive, grew up in a village in Bihar without electricity. “I felt low because of that,” he told me when we met recently in New Delhi. He decided to study electrical engineering. At college in India, he experienced the Indian prejudice against Biharis — some students refused to sit at the same table with him — which contributed to his desire to emigrate to the U.S.. He found his way to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., where he completed a master’s degree before landing a position with the semiconductor manufacturer International Rectifier in Los Angeles. His job was to figure out how to get the best performance from integrated circuits at the lowest possible cost. This helped him develop a problem-solving aptitude that would prove useful for Husk Power.

He was soon earning a six-figure income. He bought his family a diesel-powered electric generator. As a single man living in Los Angeles, he enjoyed traveling, dining out and going to clubs. “I was basically cruising through life,” he recalled. “But along with that pleasure and smoothness was a dark zone in my head.” He began meditating — and he realized that he felt compelled to return home and use his knowledge to bring light to Bihar.

Back in India, he and his friend Yadav, an entrepreneur, spent the next few years experimenting. They explored the possibility of producing organic solar cells. They tried growing a plant called jatropha, whose seeds can be used for biodiesel. Both proved impractical as businesses. They tested out solar lamps, but found their application limited. “In the back of my mind, I always thought there would be some high tech solution that would solve the problem,” said Pandey.

One day he ran into a salesman who sold gasifiers — machines that burn organic materials in an oxygen restricted environment to produce biogas which can be used to power an engine. There was nothing new about gasifiers; they had been around for decades. People sometimes burned rice husks in them to supplement diesel fuel, which was expensive. “But nobody had thought to use rice husks to run a whole power system,” explained Pandey.

In Bihar, poverty is extreme. Pretty much everything that can be used will be used — recycled or burned or fed to animals. Rice husks are the big exception. When rice is milled, the outside kernel, or husk, is discarded. Because the husk contains a lot of silica, it doesn’t burn well for cooking. A recent Greenpeace study (pdf) reports that Bihar alone produces 1.8 billion kilograms of rice husk per year. Most of it ends up rotting in landfills and emitting methane, a greenhouse gas.


Courtesy of Husk Power Systems
The mini-power plant during the day.Pandey and Yadav began bringing pieces together for an electric distribution system powered by the husks. They got a gasifier, a generator set, filtering, cleaning and cooling systems, piping and insulated wiring. They went through countless iterations to get the system working: adjusting valves and pressures, the gas-to-air ratios, the combustion temperature, the starting mechanism. In they end, they came up with a system that could burn 50 kilograms of rice husk per hour and produce 32 kilowatts of power, sufficient for about 500 village households.

They reached out to people in a village called Tamkuha, in Bihar, offering them a deal: for 80 rupees a month — roughly $1.75 — a household could get daily power for one 30-watt or two 15-watt compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs and unlimited cell phone charging between 5:00 p.m and 11:00 p.m. For many families, the price was less than half their monthly kerosene costs, and the light would be much brighter. It would also be less smoky, less of a fire hazard, and better for the environment. Customers could pay for more power if they needed it — for radios, TVs, ceiling fans or water pumps. But many had no appliances and lived in huts so small, one bulb was enough. The system went live on August 15, 2007, the anniversary of India’s independence.

It worked. Back in the United States, their colleagues Sinha and Ransler, who were pursuing M.B.A.s at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, put together a business plan and set out to raise money. They came first in two student competitions, garnering prizes of $10,000 and $50,000. The company received a grant from the Shell Foundation and set up three more systems in 2008. It has since raised $1.75 million in investment financing. In 2009, they had 19 systems in operation; in 2010, they more than tripled that number.

Technically, most of the problems were solved by 2008. But to make the business viable has required an ongoing process of what has been called “frugal innovation” — radically simplifying things to serve the needs of poor customers who would otherwise be excluded from basic market services due to their limited ability to pay.


© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace
Shops in the Sariswa Village market use power generated by Husk Power Systems.In order to bring down costs, for example, the company stripped down the gasifiers and engines, removing everything non-essential that added to manufacturing or maintenance expenses, like turbocharging. They replaced an automated water-aided process for the removal of rice husk char (burned husks) from gasifiers with one that uses 80 percent less water and can be operated with a hand crank. They kept labor costs down by recruiting locals, often from very poor families with modest education levels (who would be considered unemployable by many companies) and training them to operate and load machines, and work as fee collectors and auditors, going door-to-door ensuring that villagers aren’t using more electricity than they pay for. (Electricity theft is a national problem in India, resulting in losses to power companies estimated at 30 percent. Husk Power says it has managed to keep such losses down to five percent.)

When the company noticed that customers were purchasing poor-quality CFL bulbs, which waste energy, they partnered with Havells India, a large manufacturer, to purchase thousands of high quality bulbs at discount rates, which their collectors now sell to clients. They also saw that collectors could become discount suppliers of other products — like soap, biscuits and oil — so they added a product fulfillment business into the mix.

And they found ways to extract value from the rice husk char — the waste product of a waste product — by setting up another side business turning the char into incense sticks. This business now operates in five locations and provides supplemental income to 500 women. The company also receives government subsidies for renewable energy and is seeking Clean Development Mechanism benefits.

With growth, human audits have proven inadequate to control electricity theft or inadvertent overuse. So the company developed a stripped-down pre-payment smart-card reader for home installation. The going rate for smart-card readers is between $50 and $90. Husk Power is near completion of one that Pandey says will cost under $7.

Alone, none of these steps would have been significant. Taken together, however, they make it possible for power units to deliver tiny volumes of electricity while enjoying a 30 percent profit margin. The side businesses add another 20 percent to the bottom line. Pandey says new power units become profitable within 2 to 3 months of installation. He expects the company to be financially self-sustaining by June 2011.

From a social standpoint, there are many benefits to this business model. In addition to the fact that electricity allows shop keepers to stay open later and farmers to irrigate more land, and lighting increases children’s studying time and reduces burglaries and snakebites, the company also channels most of its wages and payments for services directly back into the villages it serves.

For decades, countries have operated on the assumption that power from large electricity plants will eventually trickle down to villagers. In many parts of the world, this has proven to be elusive. Husk Power has identified at least 25,000 villages across Bihar and neighboring states in India’s rice belt as appropriate for its model. Ramapati Kumar, an advisor on Climate and Energy for Greenpeace India, who has studied Husk Power, explained that the company’s model could “go a long way in bringing light to 125,000 unelectrified villages in India,” while reducing “the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.”

It’s too soon to say whether Husk Power will prove to be successful in the long run. As with any young company, there are many unknowns. To achieve its goals, it will need to recruit and train thousands of employees over the next four years, raise additional financing, and institute sound management practices. Many companies destroy themselves in the process of trying to expand aggressively.

But the lessons here go beyond the fortunes of Husk Power. What the company illustrates is a different way to think about innovation — one that is suitable for global problems that stem from poor people’s lack of access to energy, water, housing and education. In many cases, success in these challenges hinges less on big new ideas than on collections of small old ideas well integrated and executed. “What’s replicable isn’t the distribution of electricity,” says Pandey. “It’s the whole process of how to take an old technology and apply it to local constraints. How to create a system out of the materials and labor that are readily available.”

Let me know if you’ve come across other examples of innovations that follow this pattern.

Join Fixes on Facebook »



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David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is the founder of dowser.org, a media site that reports on social innovation.

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By TOM CHAFFIN.93 Readers' CommentsPost a Comment ».All CommentsHighlightsReaders' RecommendationsReplies..OldestNewest of 4Next ..1.odej
New York
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmI think its wonderful. Having been in India among the untouchables, their quality of life has a long way to go. From the article its clear that this is inspired from the ground up. That these people still live as they did forty years ago is for reasons that are top down. That is deferent problem, but for now, it's good to see such energy and care being showered on people that have so little.
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers .2.Sid M
Bronx
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmWell written article. It makes me wonder if there are enough rice husks to power the 125,000 villages as mentioned in your conclusion, though.
Recommend Recommended by 25 Readers .3.write thesis
Philippines
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmi hope the innovation that the people made can be shared unto this places who needs them direly, that is why we those technology in order for use to be efficient. http://www.writessay.com

Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers .4.Rajendra Vottery
INDIA
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmThis is journalism at its best - stories such as this inspire people to build their nation, nay the world, that they believe they deserve. Thank you, Mr Bornstein, for bringing this story to us.
Recommend Recommended by 70 Readers .5.Makarand
USA
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmOne word - Amazing ! Both the entrepreneur as well as the journalism highlighting it.
Recommend Recommended by 32 Readers .6.Nimesh M.
Fremont, California.
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmKudos to the Husk Power team for enabling villages in Bihar with a sustainable renewable source of energy. As a Non resident Indian, I find this article very inspiring and hope your idea lights a millions of progressive lives.
Recommend Recommended by 32 Readers .7.Manish
New Delhi
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmVery nice article..being belong from one of the state in India it is highly motivational.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers .8.sathiyavelan
Cuddalore, TN, India
January 11th, 2011
5:49 pmThis is ingenious. I hope Bihar and other poorer states in India gets better. Frugal innovation and other technological innovations should also improve the social system in poorest places of India. Mainly they are poor because of their social system.
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers .9.Sol Biderman
Brazil
January 11th, 2011
5:49 pmThe use of bioenergy in Brazil is supported by government entities and private enterprise on an enormous scale.. Large national companies, some with international investors, are using sugarcane bagasse to electrify an increasingly large percentage of the national grid.. Former President Lula helped organize cooperatives to produce jatropha, palm oil, castor oil but were less successful than the giant agribusiness enterprises that produce energy from sugarcane bagasse and soybeans (used currently as a 5% mix for diesel oil, fuel for trucks and some power plants.
About 8 years ago Nasa reported that Brazil had the second largest street lighting system in the world (as viewed from satellites) after the U.S,.The Brazilian government for decades has been directly involved in electricity generation, and only in the past 15 years has it privatized a large part of the distribution system. -Mr. Sol Biderman
Recommend Recommended by 7 Readers .10.jim mason
berkeley, ca
January 11th, 2011
5:49 pmthis is a wonderful endeavor, and one which severals orgs are currently working on around the world. i work on one of the others-- one which is leveraging diy hacking, open source plans, and desktop manufacturing tools to minimize start up friction, and maximize viral spread. it is a related take on "frugal innovation", but one experimenting with how we far we can use the web to do most of the work.

does the magic dust of open source work for industrial hardware too? or is the cost/difficulty of replicating "atoms" prevent the juice that makes it work in digital realms? we're exploring a test case in the realm of personal scale energy products.

the project is called the Gasifier Experimenter's Kit from ALL Power Labs. all information as well as the collaborative workspace are found at http://www.gekgasifier.com. there is everything from free plans and you weld together sheet metal kits, to full turnkey systems.

another central resource to learn about small scale gasification systems and their technology is the bioenergylists hosted by tom miles. this is the largest index and online discussion list relating to this tech. see here: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/

for those who want to build their own gasifier, an inventory of all available online plans is here: http://www.gekgasifier.com...

jim mason
http://www.allpowerlabs.org


Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers .11.Faisal Q
Washington DC
January 11th, 2011
8:19 pmSimply wow. Innovation at its best. Its time to give back.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers .12.Varun C.H.
India
January 11th, 2011
8:19 pmI'm very much inspired by this article since it sheds light into a new definition for innovation. The creativity and hardwork of these young innovators is much appreciable and these kind of environment friendly innovations must be encouraged allover for the betterment of the underserved.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers .13.Sam
Miami
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmI admire the founders of Husk Power and wish them all the best. My concern is, just like micro-finance, this innovation can be a target for the dirty politicians and mafia.

Bihar and Jharkhand have the richest coal mines in India and if there is no electricity for the villages, it is because the extremely corrupt politicians in the states. They have a vested interest in keeping the people in dark. Especially in this context the good deeds of Husk Power provide a social value that can never be measured by any metrics used by elite economists.

I am surprised at the comment husk is of no use. In Andhra Pradesh, a southern state in India, the large producer of rice in the country, rice husk is traded like any other commodity. It has lots of use, they make pellets or bricks that can be burnt as regular fuel. It is used as a bedding for the chicken in the poultry industry, which is later used as organic manure.
Recommend Recommended by 37 Readers .14.john delano
hopewell junction
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmWell written and worthy of an anology to what is being done in America-at this time.
A few years ago an arab country had oil production and the methane that came out of the well with the oil was burned as a waste product.
An American Named Harold Pontez came up with the idea of building a power plant using GE 6000 generators that would be turned by a "Jet engine."
Using the waste methane Harold brought the project to completion in 6 months.
Thats my friend and I admire him.
The process of using a compact generation system at the source prevent the long pipelines that pirates blow up.
His whole process can remove the horror of strip minning in the Applachians.
His source of fuel-"coal seam methane."

For an example of an efficient method of power generation-See "Dom" NYSE -black warrior Trust" in Southern Alabama. The indian [native american] land has 532 -2,000 deep wells drilled through the small area that is their land and the public utility pipes out 30 million dollars every year as the coal gives up its methane.
My friend Harrold can lite p the entire northeast grid in time with his system utilizing his method and his system would follow the power lines, The cost of moving electricity to the grid is expensive. Entergy in Westchester county NY makes so much money because Con Edison has the power line outside there door.
The article inspired me to review again our coal seam gas potential on our 200,000 square miles of Applachian coal fields.
The "farce" of drilling in the Marcellus Shale must be stopped. It will have negative equity in 4 years say the accountants that work for these Marcellus Gas Companies.
They do not have a reservoir like the 250 million years of solar input into the coal of the applachians.
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers .15.Chuck
Williamstown, NJ
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmTruly inspirational.

I hope the politicians leave these entrepreneurs alone and let the model sustain and grow by itself.

Bihar is known as a lawless state with rampant corruption. Very soon, these entrepreneurs could have the "law officials" knocking at their doors for protection money or permits or something else. Lets hope and pray that does not happen.

To answer Sid #2, yes there is more than enough husk to light up the villages.
Recommend Recommended by 23 Readers .16.M Saleem Chaudhry
karachi pakistan
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmKudos for David.B ,for highlighting an exceptionally innovative initiative of India to work out an affordable solution,for alleviating the sufferings of poor masses.This is reflective of the concern,involvement and commitment of Indian leadership for helping their teeming population.In turn this is a challenge for the leadership of Pakistani leadership, that on the other side,indulges in tomfoolery of rented second-hand power units, for the gainful satisfaction of their ulterior objectives of graft and greed and the same of their stooges and yet continue to yell for democratic services and fulfillment of articles of their faith,so -called, Islam
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers .17.krishnan
bangalore
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmthe disel prices are going to increase furthur
some body can design a compact gasifier which can be mounted at the rear end of tractor without touching implements
husk can be pelletised and converted into gas and by modifying cylinder head of the engine
it can be dual engine husk gas and diesel
may be a lilo of
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers .18.RK
Anywhere
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmThere was a similar Jhansi-based initiative called Desi Power that Mark Gregory described in his feature "Can a bush solve rural energy needs?" on the BBC Web site (updated on 19 March 2006, 01:59 GMT).
Dr Arun Kumar, director of the Development Alternatives NGO, which ran the Jhansi project, had invested in a generator that produced 100 kilowatts of electricity (enough to service the modest needs of four or five typical Indian villages -- power from the generator was also used to drive industrial processes, such as paper-making) from the ipunia bush, which grows in marshy land not suitable for agriculture. The NGO established a further 18 rural biomass power projects based on the experience at Jhansi.
Other types of biomass suitable for the gasifiers included casuarina, eucalyptus, phadauk, silver oak, pine, mulberry stalk, ipomea, jungle wood, coconut shell, coconut fronds, cotton stalk, buynat, coffee husk, sawdust, groundnut husk, rice husk, etc.


Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers .19.sun
NJ
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmOnly if many of the six figure earning Indians in America had eye eastwards.
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers .20.ashish gambhir
gurgaon, india
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmi belong to such a place in Bihar........Ara..... more than two years back i set up a stand alone solar system for my elderly parents....... since then they have thrown away their candles, kerosene lamps, torches, emergency lights...... all must haves in Bihar......

here is a youtube link to the video demonstrating the system......http:....
Recommend Recommended by 16 Readers .21.DJS
California
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmGood information except for the "fashionable" opening of a typical western mindset to portray others in a negative light "Indians prejudice against Biharis".
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers .22.ced
Ketchum, ID
January 11th, 2011
8:21 pmWhat a well crafted, intelligent, moving, and pointing-toward-the future (we all hope) piece. Thank you for writing it, and writing it so well. I am going to order your books (and Ms. Rosenberg's book) for my library. coileen
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers .23.Mahesh B
Pennsylvania
January 11th, 2011
8:21 pmEvery problem presents an opportunity, which few recognize and pursue. Thank you for your timely and enlightening report, which will do wonders in many a classroom in the world.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers .24.MJones
San Francisco
January 11th, 2011
10:55 pmThis is a wonderful example of dealing with all aspects of technological change to improve the potential of large numbers of people with few resources improve their standard of living and lower the death rate of young children. In effect, providing a minimal amount of electricity improves life for the poorest people on the planet. The real measure of success in India will be whether they lower their birth rate as a result.

When it was first invaded by humans thousands of years ago, what is now India was one of the most fertile and rich environments even known on Earth, with clean water and many biological species. Today, it is an environmental disaster, with bad air, its rivers turned to sewers, and vast species kill-off.

Ultimately, Indians have to reduce their population to what their environment can support without degradation to water, air, soil, and human living conditions. Will people who have more light at night use it to improve their education as is the case for most people in Europe and America, or will they use it to have more babies? That's the bottom line.

Thus far, every improvement in health and the economy in India has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number of mouths to feed and the number of humans to pollute the waterways. As in this example, western countries like America and England, educate some of its most promising students. But America's environment is also deteriorating at a rapid rate as new immigrants usually have a very high rate of reproduction. Any true measurement of success in India and America must include the long term impacts as well short term benefits as described in this article.
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers .25.Amit
NYC
January 11th, 2011
10:55 pmVery nice article. Thank you for shining a light on the good things people are doing to help others out.
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Fixes explores solutions to major social problems. Each week, it examines creative initiatives that can tell us about the difference between success and failure. It is written by David Bornstein, author of “How to Change the World,” and founder of dowser.org, and Tina Rosenberg, contributing writer for The New York Times magazine and author of the forthcoming “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.”

Readers with ideas for future columns can write to the authors at fixes@nytimes.com.
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Monday, January 17, 2011

Best Quotes from Albert Einstein

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received.

Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
On Science.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

(Written in old age)
I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family.
When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.
Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
Quoted in C P Snow, Variety of Men, (Harmondsworth 1969) 77.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.
Address at the Sorbonne, Paris.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other quotes:

(During a lecture)
This has been done elegantly by Minkowski; but chalk is cheaper than grey matter, and we will do it as it comes.
[Attributed by Pólya.]
Quoted in J E Littlewood, A Mathematician's Miscellany, 1953.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Reader's Digest. Oct. 1977.

I don't believe in mathematics.
Quoted in Carl Seelig. Albert Einstein.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
What I Believe.

The bitter and the sweet come from the outside, the hard from within, from one's own efforts.
Out of My Later Years.

Gott würfelt nicht.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Quoted in E T Bell Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences. 1952.

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
Quoted in L Infeld Quest, 1942.

How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality?

(About Newton)
Nature to him was an open book, whose letters he could read without effort.
Quoted in G Simmons Calculus Gems (New York 1992).

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Quoted in J R Newman, The World of Mathematics (New York 1956).

What is this frog and mouse battle among the mathematicians?
[i.e. Brouwer vs. Hilbert]
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Squared (Boston 1972).

Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.
God is subtle, but he is not malicious.
Inscribed in Fine Hall, Princeton University.

Nature hides her secrets because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.

The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things.

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.
Quoted in P A Schilpp, Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist (Evanston 1949).

Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater.

The truth of a theory is in your mind, not in your eyes.
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Squared (Boston 1972).

These thoughts did not come in any verbal formulation. I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward.
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the resta kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).

The world needs heroes and it's better they be harmless men like me than villains like Hitler.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
The American Mathematical Monthly 100 (3).

We come now to the question: what is a priori certain or necessary, respectively in geometry (doctrine of space) or its foundations? Formerly we thought everything; nowadays we think nothing. Already the distance-concept is logically arbitrary; there need be no things that correspond to it, even approximately.
"Space-Time." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
The Evolution of Physics.

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
Reader's Digest, Nov. 1973.

(To a student)
Dear Miss --
I have read about sixteen pages of your manuscript ... I suffered exactly the same treatment at the hands of my teachers who disliked me for my independence and passed over me when they wanted assistants ... keep your manuscript for your sons and daughters, in order that they may derive consolation from it and not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them. ... There is too much education altogether.
The World as I See It, (New York, 1949), 21-22.

(Written in old age)
I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family.
When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.
Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
Quoted in C P Snow, Variety of Men, (Harmondsworth 1969) 77.

The relativity principle in connection with the basic Maxwellian equations demands that the mass should be a direct measure of the energy contained in a body; light transfers mass. With radium there should be a noticeable diminution of mass. The idea is amusing and enticing; but whether the Almighty is laughing at it and is leading me up the garden path -- that I cannot know.

When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

.. common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.
Quoted in E T Bell, Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science

Thus the partial differential equation entered theoretical physics as a handmaid, but has gradually become mistress.
The World as I See It

But the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.
Quoted in H R Pagels, The Cosmic Code

But there is another reason for the high repute of mathematics: it is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, withut mathematics, they could not attain.
Quoted in E T Bell Men of Mathematics

One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.
Sidelights on Relativity

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Sidelights on Relativity

How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?
Sidelights on Relativity

Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose.
Quoted in A P French, Einstein: a Centenary Volume

Education is that which remains when one has forgotten everything learned in school.
Ideas and opinions (New York, 1954).

Before God we are all equally wise - equally foolish.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

Each of us visits that Earth involuntarily and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at its secrets.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

It is my contention that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slightest details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

Reading after a certain time diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).
[EFR: For a modern view replace reading by watching television.]

Sometimes one pays most for things one gets for nothing.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

The most incomprehensible fact about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

About Love and Letting Go

The trapeze artistes were doing what they do best, keeping the crowd spellbound with their death-defying leaps and acrobatics.

Spectators were gaping open-mouthed as they watched, stunned by the gravity-defying acts. But they were oblivious to the net that was stretched much below their line of vision. It was stretched tautly to arrest any misjudgement. It was visible only from above as the gymnasts flung themselves from dizzying heights, to be caught by a colleague in the nick of time.

The net was totally self-effacing, and could hardly be called a participant in that wondrous spectacle of human stunts. But no matter how much it underplayed itself, the net was, without doubt, very crucial for the entire act to unfold smoothly.

The presence of that net merely eased the nerves rather than improve the skills. The visual cue of that net eased the grip of every performer, as letting go of the bar or a colleague's hand was as important as holding on tight in this acrobatic orchestra.

Many achievers in life very often steal the spotlight as they go about their lives, prompting onlookers to stare in utter disbelief. Their confidence, poise, their ability to take risks and their tremendous gumption for life – all these appear enviable indeed. Very rarely is mention made of that invisible net that gave these achievers the liberty to just take off. It provided, almost unseen, a kind of security which initiated and propelled them towards their achievements. The uniqueness of that person or force is his unobtrusiveness and being virtually a non-participatory observer. Very often, involvement with a dear one or concern for that person prompts interference or meddlesome behaviour. This concern at times becomes counter-productive as it can stifle and even extinguish the spirit of exuberance.

Love and concern for a dear one often is like walking a tight rope. Or it could be like knowing the art of holding a snake as do trained herpetologists. The grip should be loose enough so as not to frighten the animal and tight enough to prevent it from escaping. Anything less than or more than that optimum hold and you have lost the plot. Concern or love that restricts you can never be conducive to your growth. Very often, extreme form of love becomes an exercise of ownership or control. And getting the object of one's affection to yield, resorting to a form of emotional blackmail, is quite commonplace. Having a very magnanimous mindset that releases, rather than holds captive is what true relationships are all about. If you love someone, set him free – an often quoted line sums it up beautifully.

An important aspect of nurturing involves the ability to let go. Like the proverbial haemoglobin that carries oxygen. The selection of this complex molecule to transport oxygen to the tissues is not because it binds very strongly to oxygen, but more importantly, its ability to release oxygen at the opportune place and time.

The most genuine of relations are the ones that never need constant reaffirmation. They are ones that transcend dependence, and never beg reciprocity. They remain uncharacteristically somewhere in the background, and serve to stimulate and encourage silently, always bordering on selflessness -- till that day of reckoning when the trapeze artistes would perform without that net. That would be the defining moment and to disappear totally would be the net's only salvation.




__,_._,___

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Of Sages and Scientists

Friends,
Life is one Integral whole and this needs to be explored. There is a widespread misconception that science and spirituality are opposed to each other.The conference, being organized by the Chopra Foundation, promises to go a long way in dispelling this erroneous assumption. I'm forwarding this for those who may be interested in this subject,as we should all be.
These are, indeed, urgent times. All of us have a very vital role to play in the nurturing and flowering of Life. Let us not underestimate our brilliance which, for the moment, lies buried within reams and reams of Maya.We need to break this spell for a brighter future of ourselves and of this planet.We all bear a Responsibility and this is a constant jihad to renew ourselves for the common good of humankind and of this glorious Life.

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/





----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Integral Life
To: asahays@yahoo.com
Sent: Fri, January 14, 2011 2:14:17 AM
Subject: Sages and Scientists: The Merging of a New Future


Having trouble viewing this email? Click here



Dear friends,

I am very pleased to send you below an announcement for Sages and Scientists, an important and compelling event hosted by our friend Deepak Chopra. For those of us interested in the intersection of mysticism and science, there are few events that bring together such a deep group of researchers and practitioners like those assembled there, including Victor Chan, Stuart Hameroff, James Doty, Duane Elgin and many others. I can still remember studying almost ten years ago the "orchestrated objective reduction" theory that Penrose and Hameroff created to explain how consciousness arises/is (have fun with that one) in the microtubules of the brain. This and many other exciting frontiers of human consciousness research will be explored and debated. I think you'll find this worthy of your attention, I hope to see you there!

Warmly,



Robb


Dear Friends,

Recent advances in science are posing new questions for spirituality:

Are we in the midst of a major paradigm shift in science?
Is there an ultimate reality?
Does consciousness conceive, govern, construct and become the
physical universe?
Is the universe becoming self aware in the human nervous system?
Is the next stage of human development conscious evolution?
Do we have the ability to influence the future evolution of the cosmos?
How does our understanding of consciousness as pure potentiality enhance our capacity for intuition, creativity, conscious choice making, healing, and the awakening of dormant potentials such as non-local communication and non-local sensory experience?
How does our understanding of consciousness also enhance our capacity for total well being (physical, emotional, spiritual, social, community, financial and ecological)?
If you find the above questions intriguing, I would love for you to join me and my colleagues (who I consider Sages and Scientists) at the second annual Chopra Foundation International Symposium: Sages and Scientists—The Merging of a New Future from February 25-27, 2011 at La Costa Resort and Spa (Carlsbad, California).

The speakers include:

Victor Chan, Trustee and founding Director of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education; co-authored with His Holiness The Dalai Lama Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys.

James Doty, M.D., Director and Founder of Project Compassion, Stanford University, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist

Duane Elgin, MBA and MA, GOI International Peace recipient, internationally recognized visionary speaker and author - The Living Universe

Bernard Haisch, astrophysicist and author - The God Theory

Stuart Hameroff, MD, physician and researcher at the University Medical Center and Center for Consciousness Studies, and co-author with Sir Roger Penrose - Orchestrated Reduction Of Quantum Coherence In Brain Microtubules: A Model For Consciousness?

Mae Wan Ho, Ph. D., Biochemistry, 1993, 1998 Director of The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) and author - The Rainbow and the Worm, The Physics of Organisms

Menas Kafatos, physicist, Founding Dean, Schmid College of Science, Vice Chancellor for Special Projects, Director of the Center for Excellence in Applied, Fundamental and Computational Science Professor, and author - The Nonlocal Universe and The Conscious Universe

Robert Lanza, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, author - Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe

Leonard Mlodinow, Physicist, co-author – The Grand Design

Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University, and author, The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds

V.S. Ramachandran, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University, co-author with Sandra Blakeslee - Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., evolution biologist, futurist, speaker, and author - Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution

Masami Saionji, Chairperson of Byakko Shinko Kai, The World Peace Prayer Society, The Goi Peace Foundation, author – The Golden Key to Happiness, You Are the Universe, and Vision for the 21st Century

Allan Savory, winner of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, President and Co Founder of the Savory Institute

Marilyn Schlitz, PhD., President and CEO of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and author - Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life.

Henry Stapp, physicist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, author - Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics

Timothy P. Shriver, Ph.D., Chairman & CEO of Special Olympics

Ian Somerhalder, actor, humanitarian, environmentalist, Ian Somerhalder Foundation

Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School; Director, and author - Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease.

Elizabeth Thompson, Executive Director, The Buckminster Fuller Institute

Jim Tucker, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia Health System, author - Life Before Life: Children's Memories of Previous Lives

Alexander Tsiaras, Founder and CEO of TheVisualMD.com

Deepak Chopra, MD

Everything will be examined from the perspectives of both sages and scientists, with a view to finding common ground. I will be moderator for the symposium.

Come and be enlightened about your emerging future. At the end of the symposium, we will summarize the current understanding of the issues that deeply affect all of us at the core of our being. The proceedings will be published by the Chopra Foundation in various media for distribution to academicians, scientists, and others throughout the world. National media has also been invited to attend. We aim to propel scientific investigation and research in the areas of consciousness.

The Foundation is requesting a gift of $1,995 (in which $1,000 is tax deductible) for general participation. Your contribution will be used for collaborative research on the realization of consciousness, support of other charitable work, and underwrite the program costs. Your participation is valued because of your influence in society and because it's my belief you are deeply interested in these deeper issues of our existence, and will use your circle of influence to spread this message of "advaita".

A



Space is limited so please RSVP as soon as possible if you intend to come.

Phone: Carolyn Rangel at 760-494-1600
Online: www.choprafoundation.org
Email: foundation@chopra.com

As I personally find myself in the autumn of my life, I find myself facing my own mortality with great awe and a deep reverence for the mystery of existence. It's my sincere hope that as we share our sense of wonder, our common understanding will further our insights into the nature of compassion, love, healing and the bond of Being that we all share.

It is my sincere hope that you will join us as a participant and audience member in this exciting event. We will have a unique opportunity to see where the future of science is going.

With warmest regards,

Deepak

Thursday, January 13, 2011

These Are Urgent Times

Sages and Scientists: The Merging of a New Future




Dear friends,

I am very pleased to send you below an announcement for Sages and Scientists, an important and compelling event hosted by our friend Deepak Chopra. For those of us interested in the intersection of mysticism and science, there are few events that bring together such a deep group of researchers and practitioners like those assembled there, including Victor Chan, Stuart Hameroff, James Doty, Duane Elgin and many others. I can still remember studying almost ten years ago the "orchestrated objective reduction" theory that Penrose and Hameroff created to explain how consciousness arises/is (have fun with that one) in the microtubules of the brain. This and many other exciting frontiers of human consciousness research will be explored and debated. I think you'll find this worthy of your attention, I hope to see you there!

Warmly,



Robb


Dear Friends,

Recent advances in science are posing new questions for spirituality:

Are we in the midst of a major paradigm shift in science?
Is there an ultimate reality?
Does consciousness conceive, govern, construct and become the
physical universe?
Is the universe becoming self aware in the human nervous system?
Is the next stage of human development conscious evolution?
Do we have the ability to influence the future evolution of the cosmos?
How does our understanding of consciousness as pure potentiality enhance our capacity for intuition, creativity, conscious choice making, healing, and the awakening of dormant potentials such as non-local communication and non-local sensory experience?
How does our understanding of consciousness also enhance our capacity for total well being (physical, emotional, spiritual, social, community, financial and ecological)?
If you find the above questions intriguing, I would love for you to join me and my colleagues (who I consider Sages and Scientists) at the second annual Chopra Foundation International Symposium: Sages and Scientists—The Merging of a New Future from February 25-27, 2011 at La Costa Resort and Spa (Carlsbad, California).

The speakers include:

Victor Chan, Trustee and founding Director of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education; co-authored with His Holiness The Dalai Lama Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys.

James Doty, M.D., Director and Founder of Project Compassion, Stanford University, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist

Duane Elgin, MBA and MA, GOI International Peace recipient, internationally recognized visionary speaker and author - The Living Universe

Bernard Haisch, astrophysicist and author - The God Theory

Stuart Hameroff, MD, physician and researcher at the University Medical Center and Center for Consciousness Studies, and co-author with Sir Roger Penrose - Orchestrated Reduction Of Quantum Coherence In Brain Microtubules: A Model For Consciousness?

Mae Wan Ho, Ph. D., Biochemistry, 1993, 1998 Director of The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) and author - The Rainbow and the Worm, The Physics of Organisms

Menas Kafatos, physicist, Founding Dean, Schmid College of Science, Vice Chancellor for Special Projects, Director of the Center for Excellence in Applied, Fundamental and Computational Science Professor, and author - The Nonlocal Universe and The Conscious Universe

Robert Lanza, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, author - Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe

Leonard Mlodinow, Physicist, co-author – The Grand Design

Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University, and author, The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds

V.S. Ramachandran, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University, co-author with Sandra Blakeslee - Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., evolution biologist, futurist, speaker, and author - Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution

Masami Saionji, Chairperson of Byakko Shinko Kai, The World Peace Prayer Society, The Goi Peace Foundation, author – The Golden Key to Happiness, You Are the Universe, and Vision for the 21st Century

Allan Savory, winner of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, President and Co Founder of the Savory Institute

Marilyn Schlitz, PhD., President and CEO of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and author - Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life.

Henry Stapp, physicist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, author - Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics

Timothy P. Shriver, Ph.D., Chairman & CEO of Special Olympics

Ian Somerhalder, actor, humanitarian, environmentalist, Ian Somerhalder Foundation

Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School; Director, and author - Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease.

Elizabeth Thompson, Executive Director, The Buckminster Fuller Institute

Jim Tucker, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia Health System, author - Life Before Life: Children's Memories of Previous Lives

Alexander Tsiaras, Founder and CEO of TheVisualMD.com

Deepak Chopra, MD

Everything will be examined from the perspectives of both sages and scientists, with a view to finding common ground. I will be moderator for the symposium.

Come and be enlightened about your emerging future. At the end of the symposium, we will summarize the current understanding of the issues that deeply affect all of us at the core of our being. The proceedings will be published by the Chopra Foundation in various media for distribution to academicians, scientists, and others throughout the world. National media has also been invited to attend. We aim to propel scientific investigation and research in the areas of consciousness.

The Foundation is requesting a gift of $1,995 (in which $1,000 is tax deductible) for general participation. Your contribution will be used for collaborative research on the realization of consciousness, support of other charitable work, and underwrite the program costs. Your participation is valued because of your influence in society and because it's my belief you are deeply interested in these deeper issues of our existence, and will use your circle of influence to spread this message of "advaita".

Accommodations are available at The La Costa Resort and Spa. For reservations, please call (800) 854-5000. When making your reservation, please mention "THE CHOPRA FOUNDATION SAGES AND SCIENTISTS SYMPOSIUM" to get the special rate: $169.00 per night, excluding Resort fees and taxes (Based on availability). In addition to the specified room rates, there will be an Automatic Daily Resort charge of $10, plus California Tourism Assessment Fee (which is currently 0.13%) per room, per night, plus applicable taxes, which are currently 10%.



Space is limited so please RSVP as soon as possible if you intend to come.

Phone: Carolyn Rangel at 760-494-1600
Online: www.choprafoundation.org
Email: foundation@chopra.com

As I personally find myself in the autumn of my life, I find myself facing my own mortality with great awe and a deep reverence for the mystery of existence. It's my sincere hope that as we share our sense of wonder, our common understanding will further our insights into the nature of compassion, love, healing and the bond of Being that we all share.

It is my sincere hope that you will join us as a participant and audience member in this exciting event. We will have a unique opportunity to see where the future of science is going.

With warmest regards,

Deepak

Monday, January 10, 2011

Right Knowledge Leads to Right Action

Dear Avinash,
Urban aggragation, Mega cities, nations, consumerism , individualism etc. are the concepts propagated bt westurn culture. Our culture talks about Vasudev Kutumka, Atithi devobhav, Darindra Narayan, love and respect to all living beings including plants etc. frugality in consumption. Zero wastage of anything is ingrained. Emphasis on unity of all being. Jeevatma is one etc. We had distributed industry based on skill etc. Industrialisation based on mechnisation has fueled concentration of wealth in microscopic minority. We had custodian kind of approach for weathly. CSR is inbuilt in our grains. Rahiman be nar mar chuke jo kahi magan jai, unse pahle be mue jin muh niksat nai. We do not have culture of returning anybody empty handed from our door signifying distributive nature.
Spiritualism may be again the domail of microscoping minority where as culture is for the majority & have wider influence. We are talking perhaps the same thing possibly in different words.
regards
Manoj Kumar Sharma
S.E.(P), NDZ-3, CPWD,


--- On Mon, 10/1/11, avinash sahay wrote


Dear Manoj,
I'm unable to agree that greed for endless profits are in any way a "Western" product.It is endemic to the present stage of evolution of mankind where the mind has not internalized the fact of love,eternal brotherhood and interconnectedness of all creation.The mind is caught up in the Separateness of the body without understanding the working of the universal Spirit which manifests,in myriad ways,in its creation.
Ofcourse, there are very powerful forces in the West, as elsewhere,which ensure that mankind remains overwhelmed by the forces of Separateness which comes in many colours. Foremost among this is Nationalism and Religion. Infact there is an extremely sophisticated, and very,very subtle,Hate Industry(read Secret Services of powerful nations) which will ensure that mankind remains caught up in Separateness and Hate.
That is why Knowledge of who we essentially are is our only Saviour. When we Know our real Selves, we'll readily realize that Love, universal brotherhood and interconnectedness of all Creation is the ONLY reality. The rest is Maya and utter delusion.With Right Knowledge, Right action is just a small step away

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/


From: manoj sharma


Dear Avinash,
West is at the initial stage of spiritual development. They want to increase their material possesions. May be when see the futility of it, they may renounce it. If you westurn kind of devolopement, its not sustainabkle in the long term . You look at it in any way, analyse it in any way. The Hot Flat and Crowed World by Thomas Friedman also talks on this lines. We are trying to enrich at the cost of the other specicies from animal kingdom or from vegetation kingdom etc. We may have to learn to balance it.
regards

Manoj Kumar Sharma



--- On Wed, 5/1/11, avinash sahay wrote:

From: avinash sahay
Subject: [IT-BHU-BatchOf1982] Freedom from Greed and Want



Friends,
This article by Dr Vandana Shiva, physicist and ecologist, is a must read.This civilization is premised on the spirit of the machine which must move and to that blind movement human lives are offered as fuel. And, now Globalisation has spread the virus of power and greed based on the power of the machine worldwide and we are drunk with the paranoia of power and endless profits.
This is obviously a dreadful situation. And the irony is that we are all complicit in this crime as the notion of Inequality is embedded in all our blood and sinews. That's precisely why there is so much of violence, disease and suffering all around where 1% of the super elites own more wealth than 90% of the denizens below.
I want to expand Dr Shiva's thesis by postulating that when we are bold enough to turn upside down this paradigm of Inequality that courses through our veins right now, we would have begun the processof regeneration, not only of ourselves but of this planet.
Let us not be deluded by the false notion that we don't matter in the larger scheme of things.We have the power to change everything but, first,we have to offer ourselves in the transormational pyre.
Forests and freedom
2011 is the year of the forest. It is also Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary. Forests were central to Tagore’s works and institution building as they have been for India’s creative expressions through the centuries.
As Tagore wrote in The Religion of the Forests, the ideal of perfection preached by the forest dwellers of ancient India runs through the heart of our classical literature and still dominates our mind. The forests are sources of water as the women of Chipko showed in the 1970s. They are the storehouse of biodiversity.
The biodiversity of the forest teaches us lessons of democracy, of leaving space for others while drawing sustenance from the common web of life. (In his essay Tapovan, Tagore writes: “Indian civilisation has been distinctive in locating its source of regeneration, material and intellectual, in the forest, not the city. India’s best ideas have come where man was in communion with trees and rivers and lakes, away from the crowds. The peace of the forest has helped the intellectual evolution of man. The culture of the forest has fuelled culture of Indian society. The culture that has arisen from the forest has been influenced by the diverse processes of renewal of life, which are always at play in the forest, varying from species to species, from season to season, in sight and sound and smell. The unifying principle of life in diversity, of democratic pluralism, thus became the principle of Indian civilisation.”
It is this “unity in diversity” that is the basis of both ecological sustainability and democracy. Diversity without unity becomes the source of conflict and contest. Uniformity without diversity becomes the ground for external control. This is true of both nature and culture.
In Tagore’s writings, the forest was not just the source of knowledge and freedom it was the source of beauty and joy, of art and aesthetics, of harmony and perfection. It symbolised the universe. In The Religion of the Forest, the poet says our attitude of mind “guides our attempts to establish relations with the universe either by conquest or by union, either through the cultivation of power or through that of sympathy”.
The forest teaches us union and compassion. For Tagore, our relationship with the forest and nature is a relationship that allows us to experience our humanity. Humans and nature are not separate we are one.
“In our dreams, nature stands in her own right, proving that she has her great function, to impart the peace of the eternal to human emotions”.
It is this permanence, this peace, this joy of living not by conquest and domination, but by co-existence and cooperation that is at the heart of a forest culture. The forest also teaches us “enoughness” as equity, enjoying the gifts of nature without exploitation and accumulation. In Religion of the Forest, Tagore quotes from the ancient texts, written in the forest: “Ishavasyam idam sarvam yat kinch jagatyam jagat
Yena tyak tena bhunjitha
Ma gradha kasyasvit dhanam”
(Know all that moves in this moving world as enveloped by god, and find enjoyment through renunciation not through greed of possession)
No species in a forest appropriates the share of other species to nutrients, water, and the sun’s energy. Every species sustains itself in mutual cooperation with others. This is Earth Democracy.
The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living. That is why the tribals of contemporary India from Kalinganagar to Niyamgiri and Bastar are resisting leaving their forest homes and abandoning their forest culture. The conflict between greed and compassion, conquest and cooperation, violence and harmony that Tagore wrote about continues today. And it is the forest which can show us the way beyond this conflict by reconnecting to nature and finding sources for own freedom. For the powerful it means freedom from greed. For the excluded it means freedom from want, from hunger and thirst, from dispossession and disposability.
Diversity is at the heart of the living systems of Gaia, including her forests. Tagore defined monocultures as the “exaggeration of sameness” and he wrote: “Life finds its truth and beauty not in exaggeration of sameness, but in harmony.”
Harmony in diversity is the nature of the forest, whereas monotonous sameness is the nature of industrialism based on a mechanical worldview. This is what Tagore saw as the difference between the West and India.
“The civilisation of the West has in it the spirit of the machine which must move; and to that blind movement human lives are offered as fuel, keeping up the stream power” (The Spirit of Freedom).
Globalisation has spread the civilisation based on power and greed and the spirit of the machine worldwide. And the global spread of the “passion of profit-making and the drunkenness of power” is spreading fear of freedoms.
A civilisation based on power and greed is a civilisation based on fear and violence.
“The people who have sacrificed their souls to the passion of profit making and the drunkenness of power are constantly pursued by phantoms of panic and suspicion, and therefore they are ruthless. They are morally incapable of allowing freedom to others” (The Spirit of Freedom).
Greed and accumulation must lead to slavery.
Today the rule of money and greed dominates our society, economy and politics. The culture of conquest is invading into our tribal lands and forests through mining of iron-ore, bauxite and coal.
Every forest area has become a war zone. Every tribal is defined as a “Maoist” by a militarised corporate state appropriating the land and natural resources of the tribals. And every defender of the rights of the forest and forest dwellers is being treated as a criminal. This is the context of Dr Binayak Sen’s life sentence.
If India is to survive ecologically and politically, if India has to stay democratic, if Indian citizen is to be guaranteed, we need to give up the road of conquest and destruction and take the road of union and conservation, we need to cultivate peace and compassion instead of power and violence.
We need to turn, once again, to the forest as our perennial teachers of peace and freedom, of diversity and democracy.
* Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of Navdanya Trust



.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

We Have Never Been Modern

Friends,
You may like to check out this exciting interview with Bruno Latour, whose provocative book is the Subject of this story.
The point that this scholar seems to be making is this.Science and Technology likes to think of itself as being rational, objective,separate and universal.But a study of the history of Science shows that it is deeply connected to the rest of cultures and the rest of politics.You may also like to check out J.D.Bernal's seminal work Science in History for this proposition.That seems to be obvious given the fact that everything operates in a particular social, political and economic context. The bulk of the money spent on scientific research goes in the areas where Corporates stand to gain endless profits, such as in armaments relating to war or in the pharmaceutical industry, both of which have very little correlation to the well being of the common people at large.
The stupendous success of science and technology of the last hundred years has certainly revolutionized the lives of people at large. But, thanks to the social, political and economic context in which Science and Technology operates, the majority of the poor are yet to reap its benefits. For example, solar energy can revolutionize life on this planet,but we are still stuck with fossil fuels because fast bucks lies in peddaling the latter.
Just like the popular media and organized religion, Science and Technology has also been tied to the apron strings of the vested interests. That is okay but let not Science,as it is practised,pretend that it represents"progress" when, in fact,it is only the handmaiden of the super elites.

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/




OPINION » INTERVIEW
January 4, 2011
‘I would define politics as the composition of a common world'
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BRUND LATOUR: 'On governments the question becomes complicated becuase we are now talking about the politics of Nature and that's a rather new quandary. Photo: Denis Rouvre
BRUND LATOUR: 'On governments the question becomes complicated becuase we are now talking about the politics of Nature and that's a rather new quandary. Photo: Denis Rouvre

Interview with Bruno Latour, thinker and social anthropologist.

Bruno Latour is one of France's most innovative, provocative and stimulating thinkers and social anthropologists. Given French Cartesian orthodoxy, it is not surprising that he is more appreciated in the Anglo-Saxon world, where his books such as “We Have Never Been Modern” (1993) are better known than in his native France. Jon Thompson, the publisher and chief editor of Polity Press, London, described him as France's most original and interesting thinker and in 2007, Bruno Latour was listed as the 10th most-cited intellectual in the humanities and social sciences by The Times Higher Education Guide.

Mr. Latour's seminal work has been in the field of Science and Technology Studies. With his “Actor Network Theory” he has advanced the notion that the objects of scientific study are socially constructed within the laboratory. Thus scientific activity is viewed as a system of beliefs, oral traditions and culturally specific practices, reconstructed, not as a procedure or as a set of principles but as a culture. Mr. Latour will be in India this week conducting workshops in New Delhi. In this exclusive interview with TheHindu's Vaiju Naravane in Paris, he discusses the new challenges facing humanity and of India's role in the climate debate.

I wish to start this interview with a discussion of one of your most famous books — “We Have Never Been Modern”. Could you explain what you meant by that? What made you write this book and where do you go now?

The Great Narrative of the Western definition of the world was based on a certain idea of Science and Technology and once we began, 30 or 40 years ago to study the practices of the making of science and technology, we realised that this definition could not sustain the old idea of western rationality taking, in a way the place of archaic attachment to the past.

The Great Narrative was based on the idea of Science which was largely mythical. Science has always been linked to the other cultures of the Western World, although it has always described itself as apart — separated from politics, values, religion and so on. But when you begin to work on a history of Science — Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, Einstein, Kantor or whoever, you find on the contrary, that things have never been severed, that there has always been a continuous re-connection with the rest of cultures and especially with the rest of politics.

So until the end of the 20th century the western Great Narrative was caught in a contradiction between its practice which was constant attachment between Science and Culture and its official description of itself as being rational, objective, separate, as being universal in that it operated everywhere in the same way. Now what is interesting from the Indian perspective is that the whole discourse about modernising or not modernising, about progressing or not progressing, between being archaic or not, was based on the baseline shibboleth provided by this idea of modernisation. Now if you change this baseline and if modernisation is not what has been going on in the so-called West, the “we” of We Have Never Been Modern, then it opens up many new conversations between the former modernising and the former modernised. And of course this fits very well with the large body of literature, mainly from India on post-colonial studies.

I would like to refer to a recent essay of yours in which you say and I quote: “… the meteorologists don't agree with the chemists; they are talking about cyclical fluctuations unrelated to human activity. … The horizons, the stakes, the time frames, the actors — none of these is commensurable and yet, there they are, caught up in the same story…” So what is going on in this debate over climate change and what happens to the role of governments?

On governments the question becomes complicated because we are now talking about the politics of Nature and that's a rather new quandary. Nature was not supposed to be part of anything — it was supposed to be out there. Not in the ancient tradition where there was no separation to begin with between Nature and society but now, when we have returned to a most interesting position, where Nature is back in politics. However, Nature is not able to unify the discussion so far because people are entering into controversies about Nature. And these controversies cannot be quashed by saying — you are not a scientist or you are not the government or from the West or whatever, and this is a very new arena for politics as well as for scientists and citizens. And that is the new area I am trying to map, so to speak. But no one has answers for that. No one has ever had to bring the climate into parliament! We are struggling collectively and India again is very important here because of its new role in Cancun and the climate debate.

In New Delhi you are holding talks with ecologists, engineers who develop digital technologies with social science applications and those engaged in both the climate change and globalisation debate from the emerging countries' point of view. Where do you think the meeting ground lies?

The responses have to be issue-specific, of course. But the first thing is to have a meeting ground which is defined neither by the need of Nature, as if Nature was able to exist universally and outside politics, nor by defining it only by market forces, although market forces have to be defined and organised as well. So it's more of a negative common ground, I would say. Do we agree that the problem cannot be solved by other than composing a common world? The composition of a common world would be the definition of politics.

You are one of France's most original, stimulating and provocative thinkers and yet, you are much better known and better appreciated outside France. Do you think this has to do with France's rigid Cartesian mindset and orthodoxy?

In France there is a specific reason. Science and Modernisation have been so entangled from the time of the French Revolution that it is difficult in here to reopen this question of universality, science, colonial expansion and so on without entering into many, many delicate and “hot” issues about identities. So the French identity has largely been based on a certain idea of Science and expansion and all these questions are now being debated and put into jeopardy. Everything here hinges on a certain idea of science and it's an idea of science that I am tackling and they don't like that too much! Of course there is the same discourse in India where attacking Science and Technology is considered reactionary and so forth. So the idea that there is no other alternative, that is, if you do not talk about Science and Technology in a “progress” mode, you are a reactionary is the same everywhere. In India, France or America, the same temptation is there. That is now changing because of the ecology crisis.

You have been working on the idea of eco-theology. Could you talk about that?

Given that we have to look for alternatives to the politics of Nature, I was interested in seeing if there is in the old tradition of Christian theology – I don't know enough about Indian tradition — about respect for Creation. Not about Nature but respect for Creation. And it happens that in the Orthodox Christian tradition of Central and Eastern Europe there is a large body of theological work around the question of Creation. My interest is that there is a disconnect between the science and the size of the threat that people mention about Nature, the planet and the climate and the emotion that this triggers. So we are supposed to be extremely frightened people, but despite that we appear to sleep pretty well. So either the threat is not that strong, or we have not built the kind of emotion we have built for war, for religious conflict and all sorts of other issues which make us very emotive.

Or that our fright is so great that it has numbed us …

That's also a very clear possibility and that's not a very good attitude either, nonetheless. That's why I'm interested in seeing and checking if there is in religious tradition where you fathom this question about emotion about Creation. And again, India is a very interesting place for that.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Freedom from Greed and Freedom from Want

Wed, January 5, 2011 11:48:51 AM[itbhuchn] Freedom from Greed and Want
From: avinash sahay View Contact
To: IT BHU
Cc: itbhu chennai ; Avinash K. Sahay ; Atul Pranay ; Devashish Roy Choudhury ; Anuradha Mukherjee ; Durga Charan Dash ... more


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Friends,

This article by Dr Vandana Shiva, physicist and ecologist, is a must read.This civilization is premised on the spirit of the machine which must move and to that blind movement human lives are offered as fuel. And, now Globalisation has spread the virus of power and greed based on the power of the machine worldwide and we are drunk with the paranoia of power and endless profits.

This is obviously a dreadful situation. And the irony is that we are all complicit in this crime as the notion of Inequality is embedded in all our blood and sinews. That's precisely why there is so much of violence, disease and suffering all around where 1% of the super elites own more wealth than 90% of the denizens below.

I want to expand Dr Shiva's thesis by postulating that when we are bold enough to turn upside down this paradigm of Inequality that courses through our veins right now, we would have begun the processof regeneration, not only of ourselves but of this planet.

Let us not be deluded by the false notion that we don't matter in the larger scheme of things.We have the power to change everything but, first,we have to offer ourselves in the transormational pyre.
Forests and freedom

2011 is the year of the forest. It is also Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary. Forests were central to Tagore’s works and institution building as they have been for India’s creative expressions through the centuries.

As Tagore wrote in The Religion of the Forests, the ideal of perfection preached by the forest dwellers of ancient India runs through the heart of our classical literature and still dominates our mind. The forests are sources of water as the women of Chipko showed in the 1970s. They are the storehouse of biodiversity.

The biodiversity of the forest teaches us lessons of democracy, of leaving space for others while drawing sustenance from the common web of life. (In his essay Tapovan, Tagore writes: “Indian civilisation has been distinctive in locating its source of regeneration, material and intellectual, in the forest, not the city. India’s best ideas have come where man was in communion with trees and rivers and lakes, away from the crowds. The peace of the forest has helped the intellectual evolution of man. The culture of the forest has fuelled culture of Indian society. The culture that has arisen from the forest has been influenced by the diverse processes of renewal of life, which are always at play in the forest, varying from species to species, from season to season, in sight and sound and smell. The unifying principle of life in diversity, of democratic pluralism, thus became the principle of Indian civilisation.”

It is this “unity in diversity” that is the basis of both ecological sustainability and democracy. Diversity without unity becomes the source of conflict and contest. Uniformity without diversity becomes the ground for external control. This is true of both nature and culture.

In Tagore’s writings, the forest was not just the source of knowledge and freedom it was the source of beauty and joy, of art and aesthetics, of harmony and perfection. It symbolised the universe. In The Religion of the Forest, the poet says our attitude of mind “guides our attempts to establish relations with the universe either by conquest or by union, either through the cultivation of power or through that of sympathy”.

The forest teaches us union and compassion. For Tagore, our relationship with the forest and nature is a relationship that allows us to experience our humanity. Humans and nature are not separate we are one.

“In our dreams, nature stands in her own right, proving that she has her great function, to impart the peace of the eternal to human emotions”.

It is this permanence, this peace, this joy of living not by conquest and domination, but by co-existence and cooperation that is at the heart of a forest culture. The forest also teaches us “enoughness” as equity, enjoying the gifts of nature without exploitation and accumulation. In Religion of the Forest, Tagore quotes from the ancient texts, written in the forest: “Ishavasyam idam sarvam yat kinch jagatyam jagat

Yena tyak tena bhunjitha
Ma gradha kasyasvit dhanam”
(Know all that moves in this moving world as enveloped by god, and find enjoyment through renunciation not through greed of possession)
No species in a forest appropriates the share of other species to nutrients, water, and the sun’s energy. Every species sustains itself in mutual cooperation with others. This is Earth Democracy.

The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living. That is why the tribals of contemporary India from Kalinganagar to Niyamgiri and Bastar are resisting leaving their forest homes and abandoning their forest culture. The conflict between greed and compassion, conquest and cooperation, violence and harmony that Tagore wrote about continues today. And it is the forest which can show us the way beyond this conflict by reconnecting to nature and finding sources for own freedom. For the powerful it means freedom from greed. For the excluded it means freedom from want, from hunger and thirst, from dispossession and disposability.

Diversity is at the heart of the living systems of Gaia, including her forests. Tagore defined monocultures as the “exaggeration of sameness” and he wrote: “Life finds its truth and beauty not in exaggeration of sameness, but in harmony.”

Harmony in diversity is the nature of the forest, whereas monotonous sameness is the nature of industrialism based on a mechanical worldview. This is what Tagore saw as the difference between the West and India.

“The civilisation of the West has in it the spirit of the machine which must move; and to that blind movement human lives are offered as fuel, keeping up the stream power” (The Spirit of Freedom).

Globalisation has spread the civilisation based on power and greed and the spirit of the machine worldwide. And the global spread of the “passion of profit-making and the drunkenness of power” is spreading fear of freedoms.

A civilisation based on power and greed is a civilisation based on fear and violence.
“The people who have sacrificed their souls to the passion of profit making and the drunkenness of power are constantly pursued by phantoms of panic and suspicion, and therefore they are ruthless. They are morally incapable of allowing freedom to others” (The Spirit of Freedom).

Greed and accumulation must lead to slavery.
Today the rule of money and greed dominates our society, economy and politics. The culture of conquest is invading into our tribal lands and forests through mining of iron-ore, bauxite and coal.

Every forest area has become a war zone. Every tribal is defined as a “Maoist” by a militarised corporate state appropriating the land and natural resources of the tribals. And every defender of the rights of the forest and forest dwellers is being treated as a criminal. This is the context of Dr Binayak Sen’s life sentence.

If India is to survive ecologically and politically, if India has to stay democratic, if Indian citizen is to be guaranteed, we need to give up the road of conquest and destruction and take the road of union and conservation, we need to cultivate peace and compassion instead of power and violence.

We need to turn, once again, to the forest as our perennial teachers of peace and freedom, of diversity and democracy.

* Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of Navdanya Trust



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